Mind Games (18 page)

31

‘Welcome to Inac, PareCo’s premier Think Tank facility!’ A woman in a white coat beams at us. ‘If you find the Centre uncomfortable in daylight, there are sunglasses available.’ She gestures to a stand, and I and most of the others put them on and stare at the massive open space around us.

We’re in a glass dome, but the walls aren’t smooth: the glass bends and twists in angles, forms prisms that snake together to enclose a football pitch-sized space. They join maybe a few hundred metres above us, and every twist and bend of the glass reflects the sunny sky over and over, blazing sun and cool blue in an endless kaleidoscopic pattern. And underneath it all? Water splashes in an elaborate, statued and carved fountain that even my eyes recognise. ‘The Trevi Fountain? That’s an amazing copy.’

‘Not a copy,’ Hex says.

I frown, turn to him. ‘I’m sure it was destroyed during the third world war.’

He shakes his head. ‘It was taken into protective custody, and re-homed here. You could say it went
missing
.’

My jaw does that hanging open thing again. I shut it. ‘Serious?’

His eyes twinkle and I don’t know if he is for real, or not.

The white-jacketed beamer must have heard; she walks over, the rest of our group off the next lift in tow, wide smile firmly in place. ‘Yes, that really is the Trevi Fountain! Hidden, as Hex said, and gifted to PareCo by the Vatican for their assistance in rebuilding after the war. Not generally known.’ She winks. ‘Now, Hex: as you’re here, could you take the new interns to check in, please?’

‘Aye aye,’ he says, and swings an arm. ‘This way.’

We follow him across the shining marble floor. As we get closer to a wall we can see that the dazzling glass actually juts out in mirrored panels at the lower levels, hiding doors from sight.

We go through a door that leads to a more ordinary hallway, then up stairs to a check-in desk.

‘Gotta go,’ Hex says. ‘My free pass this afternoon to greet you is over. See you at dinner!’ And he’s gone.

We get our room assignments, and head up more stairs. I find my room and open the door to the biggest, most beautiful bedroom I’ve ever seen, but I head straight across to the window. To call it a window is wrong – the entire expansive far wall is glass. And beyond it? The island. We’re at the heart of Inac; PareCo has built on the centre of the extinct volcano that formed the island.

And beyond the PareCo compound is…nothing. Nothing by London eyes, that is – no people, no roads, no buildings. Wild green places stretch on and on to reach the sea, a distant shimmering blue that curves around the island. I’m transfixed. It’s beautiful, and more than anything I want
out
: to walk to the sea.

Then there is a low beep and the view is gone. Replaced by Marina’s giant smiling face, and I jump out of my skin. Or I would have if it were detachable.

‘Whoa! How’d you do that?’

She laughs. ‘Can I come over?’

‘Sure.’

Her face disappears and a moment later she comes through the door.

‘What the heck was that?’ I ask.

‘It’s an interface screen.’

When I look at her blankly, she walks over and touches the window, and the view vanishes once again. ‘It’s like a giant touch screen. You can put up anything you want on it, too. See?’ And her hands move rapidly, changing the outside view for other scenes: tropical; snowy; a jungle complete with monkeys. ‘Or put up your own photo or photo stream. Or, like I just did, use it to call other rooms or departments. Though most of the time I’d just message an Implant if I want to talk to somebody.’ She shows me how to call up the intern directory, and a list of names appears. ‘Like your friend Hex,’ she says, and points out his name. ‘Isn’t it awesome tech?’ She shuts it down and puts it back to the view of Inac.

I gesture. ‘
Outside
is awesome. How do we go there?’

She frowns. ‘I’m not sure we can. It’s a reserve, remember?’

‘How much of a reserve can it be with a giant glass dome and the Trevi Fountain plonked in the middle of it? Besides, look: the sea. It’s all around. I bet you can see if from every room around the edges of this place.’

‘Give me a sec,’ she says, and her face goes blank. She’s gone longer than a sec. I start lugging my bag across the room and onto a sofa to unpack it.

‘There,’ she says, finally, and a map appears on my window. It shows the whole PareCo complex. The place is actually an octagon, an eight-sided figure. ‘That took a little digging. There aren’t any official exits apart from the lifts we came up in. But there are emergency exits.’ She points them out on the map, eight spaced around the compound at the bottom of each of the main stairwells, then shows me how to minimise the map on my interface so I can find it again.

‘Did you see what’s in the wardrobes?’ she asks, and when I shake my head, touches a panel on a side wall. It opens, and inside? Clothes.

I run my hand across a row of tunics, beautifully soft, all the same but in different colours. Trousers and skirts to go with. Soft shoes in matching colours.

‘They just give us all this stuff?’

‘Yep. It’s part of the joy of working here, apparently. And I checked mine; they’re exactly my size,’ she says. ‘I’m going to unpack; dinner is in an hour. Not that I’ll ever wear my own stuff with all
that
to choose from.’

Once I’m on my own I can’t resist. I pull on a soft blue tunic. It looks plain, simple, but somehow it just hangs
right
. Feels like wearing a warm hug, as do the matching trousers. All of the stuff is in pale and muted colours, not what I’d usually go for, but when I work out how to change my window wall into a mirror, they don’t just feel good. They look kind of
wow
.

Next I tap the window and hunt for the intern directory Marina’d had up before. It had come and gone on the screen too fast for my eyes to scan.

Directories listed include Virtual World Support, General Computing, Catering, Logistics, Staff Housing. Medical departments by the score. Think Tanks number 1 to 430? That’s a lot of thinking. Finally I find it: intern directory.

I scroll it up and down and scan the names, then do it again more slowly. I’m here; Marina; Hex. Most are names I don’t recognise: thirty interns in total. Is that all? Who works in the Think Tanks?

But no matter how many times I look, Gecko’s name simply isn’t there. Disappointment pulls, inside. And what does it mean? Either he’s here under another name, he lied when he said they were bringing him here, or he really
is
bonkers. So that is a win-win situation, right? If he’s somehow still here, good. If he’s not here, he’s bonkers, so just as well.

But I can’t ignore a sinking feeling, one that says it could be lose-lose, instead. He’d said he was being held by PareCo, that he was being brought here against his will. If he was telling the truth and he’s not listed on the directory, what does that mean? What if something has happened to him?

At dinner we’re in a glass-sided dining hall on the outside wall of the Centre. We watch the sun go down in awe while quiet servers bring course after course of some of the best food I’ve ever tasted.

We’re at a long table, thirty of us: the twelve plus one – me – that arrived today, and the rest including Hex are the previous arrivals. The group I should have been with. But no Gecko.

And all of us have been into our magic wardrobes, and are wearing tunics like mine, with soft trousers or skirts. It doesn’t even look too samey; somehow they’re a little different on everyone. How’d they get all our sizes exactly right? It feels a little weird, like someone has been busily measuring me while I sleep.

Afterwards, Marina and I wander back to our rooms with the rest of the girls, and say goodnight. The boys are on a different floor. My room still has the outside screen on: the stars somehow look bigger here, more beautiful. Like they’re happier to shine on this wild, remote place than London. Part of me feels uncomfortable with this huge open wall, like I should have curtains across it, but there is
nobody
out there on this island. That, in itself, feels strange. In London it always felt like other people were inches away.

My room has everything you could want, with one glaring exception: no PIP. I want to see Dad, make sure everything is good at home. It seems an aeon since I was there. Tomorrow I have to find one.

I have a long shower in a bathroom so high-tech it takes me five minutes just to work out how to turn the water on. Wrap a towel around my body while I hunt through the wardrobe for a robe I’m sure I spotted earlier.

Ding.

The room light changes, and I swing back around to the window.

Hex grins on the interface screen.

I dive behind the sofa, put the robe on: it’s really short. Stand up cautiously, pulling it down with one hand and holding it closed with the other.

He whistles. ‘Nice outfit!’

‘I wasn’t expecting you to appear all giant-sized on the wall of my bedroom!’

He laughs. ‘There’s a privacy lock. If you’re asleep or wandering about
naked
. Not that I mind. Just tap either no calls, or no visual.’ He explains how to do it while I mentally address Marina for missing out this crucial bit of info.

‘So what’s up?’

‘Meet me by the fountain? We need to talk. And the dome is awesome at night; you need to see it. Do you remember the way?’

‘I’ll work it out. Give me ten.’

He signs off and I throw on some fresh clothes from the endless wardrobe, work out the high-tech high-speed hairdryer, and am sorted in minutes. I slip out of my room, down the hall to the stairs. Are there detectors? None that I can see.

I take the stairs down and soon find the right door, and step out under the glass.

It’s still dazzling, but not like this afternoon when sunglasses were needed. Hex isn’t here yet. The vast space is empty and quiet, and I walk carefully across the floor, somehow wanting each step to be silent, to not disturb what my eyes are drinking in. The night sky is clear; stars are endlessly reflected over and over in the glass, on the shiny floor, in the clear water of the fountain. The swishing and splashing of the water is the only sound. The stars reflect everywhere – patterns of silvery light on my skin, my clothes. I stare at my reflection in the star-speckled water, and almost imagine I see silver winding around my eye.

I hear a distant door open, and turn. Hex waves and crosses the floor.

‘Alone at last. I’ve been dying to talk to you,’ Hex says, points at the steps by the fountain. I sit next to him. ‘Where’ve you been, Luna?’

I know what I’m supposed to say. But nobody else is here, and this is Hex.

I sigh. ‘I don’t know. You probably know more about it than I do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t remember anything since the day before the transport left. One moment it was the night before; the next, I was in this café in London. Dr Rafferty came and got me. They did scans and all sorts of tests; I found out I’d lost six days. They said my memories aren’t suppressed, they’re actually missing – like they never existed, as if somebody cut them out of my brain.’

‘Wow.’ He ruffles his hair, shock in his eyes.

‘Now tell me everything you know about it. Please.’

‘Of course. You were on the transport. I was surprised to see you, thought you were transferred to London Uni?’

‘The transfer was revoked when my nanna died.’

‘Right. That’s what you told me. And then Gecko got on the transport—’

‘He was on the transport? Then why isn’t he here?’

‘He asked to sit with you. I switched seats with him.’ He swears under his breath. ‘I kept thinking back to that moment, and thinking, if only I hadn’t.’

‘I don’t understand. What happened?’

‘There was a crash; the transport crashed. People flying through the air. Lucky no one was seriously hurt. Then Gecko pushed you out through an emergency exit.’

A shiver goes up my back. Is that why the sight of that emergency exit on the plane freaked me out?

‘I’m really sorry, Luna. Will you forgive me?’

‘What for?’

Hex looks miserable. ‘Back when we first got to the test centre, Gecko asked me to introduce you to him, to get you to sit with us at dinner that first night. I should have told you. I just figured he fancied you; I didn’t think he was planning to kidnap you.’

‘He
kidnapped
me?’

‘He dragged you away after the crash. I could see you were struggling but couldn’t get to you in time to help. He must be a total nutter, Luna. A psycho. Thank God he’s not here and you’re all right.’

I look away, to the water splashing in the fountain.

So is Gecko completely bonkersville after all? Did he really
kidnap
me? He must have; Hex saw it happen. Where did he take me? My stomach twists. If he really has lost it, then all that stuff he said about PareCo, and how Jezzamine and Danny died, could be delusions. Or even worse: lies.

I’m relieved that their deaths may have been acccidents after all. But being right doesn’t feel good. It feels sad. A blue wave of loss, of solitude, washes over me, and I sigh, head in hands. Gecko with the crazy, warm glint in his eyes, and that adventure we had together: the magical trip to the waterfall world. But not again. He’s not here; not now, not ever.

‘Luna? Do you forgive me?’

I look up at Hex. His tattooed face is tortured in the starlight, black swirls twisting and broken on white skin where the frown wrinkles his brow. Not like Gecko. Gecko would be beautiful in starshine, dark skin warm with S’hacker silver winding around his eye. Like Astra.

I try to push away tears that want to splash on marble, to join the fountain. ‘Of course I do. You didn’t know; neither did I.’

His arms encircle me for a hug, even more crushing than the beach one. ‘Don’t worry about Gecko or anyone else, Luna. Nothing like that is ever going to happen again, not with me here. You couldn’t be safer.’

I wriggle away. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not planning on getting kidnapped again any time soon. And I’ll try to keep away from emergency exits at all times.’